


Can't Fight the Friction

by rawdudebro



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, and annabeth is too smart for the fuckery i want to write, and it probably belongs on like wattpad, annabeth is really only mentioned, bc my gf hates the hets, but alas here it is, she's dead before the fic starts, the character death is annabeth, this is sooooo cliche
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-25 19:12:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14983703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rawdudebro/pseuds/rawdudebro
Summary: The gaps in Percy Jackson's SHIELD file timeline is worrying, to say the least. Fury calls Tony who is not interested, thank you very much. Tony tracks him down. Percy really just wants to be left alone.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [everlastingwords](https://archiveofourown.org/users/everlastingwords/gifts).



“She’s gone.” 

Nico’s voice is hard, and he’s staring up at Percy with so much anger in his face that it’s heat melts away what resolve Percy had left. 

“I know.” He says, his voice holds steady as his mind blanks into white noise. When he repeats it, his voice cracks and frays at the edges, bleeding into the air like the cry of a dying man. Perhaps that’s what he was. “I know.” 

He deserves the anger Nico is directing his way. Really, what did he think he’d ever accomplish? That he’d go down to the underworld and bring Annabeth back and they’d live happy ever after? That Hades and Thanos and Nico wouldn’t retaliate? That his actions would reflect poorly, not only on him, but also on Annabeth. He tosses Anaklusmos into the dirt, where it lay, dirtied and scratched. Percy sinks down into the dirt a few feet away from where it lay, holding his head in his hands. 

“I’m sorry.” He says as Nico lowers his sword. 

His breath hitches in his throat, shallow and rough and it hurts a little as he chokes around the lump that’s formed. His cheeks are wet, and Percy realized it’s the first time he’d cried, really cried, for Annabeth. He doesn’t bother to wipe the tears away, because somehow, that makes it feel like he’s brushing her away. 

Nico’s sword has disappeared into the shadows, and the smaller boy shifts down beside him, resting his arms on his knees. The dark hair that isn’t plastered to his skull with sweat, falls across his dark face. 

They sit in silence and let a moment pass, and then another, before Nico says, “I’m sorry, too.” 

Percy chokes down a sob that’s rising from deep within him. She’s gone. It’s Nico’s words, rough and angry. She’s gone. It’s Chiron’s words, strangled with grief. She’s gone. It’s Sally’s words, struck with shock and confusion. She’s gone. The words are his, as he clutches her close, as he burns her shroud, as he sits in the dirt and finally accepts them. 

“I just.. We were supposed to be something permanent.” He says, and his voice comes out thick and choked sounding. 

•••••

He goes home, and for six months, no one comes for him. There are no knock on the door, no rocks at his window, and no Iris Messages to answer. 

There is him, and his mom, and Paul. There is his bed and a duffel bag of clothes that aren’t his, and the white noise of the TV. There is him, and there are blue cookies and warm hugs. There is, there is, there is, but she’s gone. 

Sometimes, it feels like he isn’t. 

On month seven, Frederick Chase knocks on their door. 

He’s wringing his hands together, face all scrunched up with worry. His the top buttons of his button up were undone and his shirt was wrinkled.

Sally opens the door with a, “Mr. Chase?” and his face falls. 

“She’s not here, then?” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, it’s just that she missed her flight to San Fran we booked back in May and you know how it is with demigods and phones.”

He lets out a nervous chuckle, but it’s obvious he’s still worried about her. Annabeth. Annabeth who’s gone. 

“I think you should come inside, Mr. Chase.” Sally replies kindly. 

Frederick swallows hard, and bows his head as she leads him into the kitchen. He sits, tapping his fingers on the old wood of their table, tracing a deep gouge in the surface. It was an old table, sort of banged up and hacked at, but it was still functional. Sally pours some tea for the both of them, and slides a cup his way as she sits. 

“Mr. Chase,” She swallows thickly, “Eight months ago, Annabeth passed away.” 

“No.” Frederick buried his head in his hands. He shakes his head, swallows and says, “She’s gone?” 

“It was a cyclops.” Percy echoes from the doorway. He stands there, arms at his sides. He’s wearing pajama pants and a dirty t-shirt that’s got a questionable stain down the front. Percy doesn’t remember he last time he washed his hair, and it hangs, shaggy and overgrown, across his forehead. 

“She was- and I tried to… but she didn’t make it.” His voice is soft, and full of anguish. He stares resolutely at the floor, eyes welling up with tears. 

Frederick devolves into sobs on the table. 

Percy’s fists clench at his sides as he watches. White hot rage flashes through him, similar to the frantic determination he’s felt right after she’d died. Nobody told him. There was a whole camp full of people who came to the burning of her pyre and not one of them fucking told him. Did they expect Percy to? Percy who was grieving, hurting, pulling at a deep wound. He’d carved out a space for her in his chest and she wasn’t there to fill it and he was left empty and aching. 

•••••

Percy gets a haircut and a suit and a plane ticket to San Francisco. Annabeth gets an empty grave next to her grandparents and a small gathering. 

It’s the first time Percy’s worn pants with pockets in what feels like forever, and the weight of Anaklusmos in his pocket feels like a burden. He’s carried it for so long. He’s carried the blade through Tartarus, but now it weighs him down, feels heavy in his pocket, so he takes it or and chucks it as far as he can. 

He doesn’t want it. He never wanted it. He didn’t ask for this life, in fact he loathed it. Endless fighting, and for what?

Frederick lays a hand on his shoulder and says, “I know, son. I know.” 

•••••

“I need a favor.” It’s Fury on the line, voice ringing clear from the overhead speakers, truly immersive. 

“Yeah, how about no.” Tony bites, not looking up from his current project. Various mechanical parts lay scattered around the table, and in the center lay what looks innocuously like an arrow tip. To the left is a deconstructed wristband of sorts. 

“You don’t even know what it is yet.” Fury replies dryly. “I think he’ll interest you.” 

Tony leans back and grabs an arrow shaft, screwing the top from the table onto it. There’s bags under his eyes from being awake so long, and the tanktop he’s wearing is stained with grease and charred in spots.

“He?” Tony arches an eyebrow, loading the arrow into a complicated looking rig that resembles a crossbow. He tilts it down the large space of his workshop at a target across the room. 

“Percy Jackson. He’s a ghost. CCTV catches half of what he does and he disappears off somewhere nearly every summer only to resurface near sites of disaster.” Fury states, and Tony’s fingers pause at a button. “He somehow loses every team we send to tail him and the ones sent to take him in, too.” 

Tony presses the button, which launches the arrow into the target, which ices over. The frost spreads to the floor, and Dummy moves in with the fire extinguisher. 

“So send the wonder team after him.” Tony rolls his eyes, “Birdbrain’s arrows are done and Natashalie’s Bite upgrades are almost there.” 

“I was going to, but he caught a flight to San Fran.” Fury replies, “Thought you might want a bite of the kid.” 

Tony, to his chagrin, is interested. Who manages to avoid SHIELD? JARVIS is already pulling up info on him, displaying it on the holograms a few feet away. Tony shuffles over, firing through the information being presented. 

“No thanks, not interested.” Tony grins, “End call.” 

Fury sighs over the line, but it’s cut off. Tony, hands deep in information, tilts his head as he slides recent sightings in front of him. CCTV at the airport places him in New York, but doesn’t catch him again until he hits a McDonalds in San Francisco with an older man. He’s tall, but he slouches in his grey sweatpants. His face remains lethargic throughout the short clip of him going through security, though he doesn’t ever stop moving. He fidgets with a ballpoint pen, taps his fingers, rubs his neck, and paces, but doesn’t ever still. 

He’s eighteen, and the man he’s with is Frederick Chase, father of Annabeth Chase. With their shared history of kidnapping and coercion, the fact that the kid looks dead on his feet and the girl isn’t anywhere in sight is a red flag, but he seems to trust Chase enough. 

The other kid mentioned in the whole kidnapping and coercion debacle, Grover Underwood, hasn’t been seen in a while, so he puts JARVIS on that while he stares at Jackson’s file. He has a few associates, and his mom is living in New York, no father listed. That part of it is unusual. Even if no father is listed on the birth certificate, for someone so prominent on SHIELD’s radar that Fury knows about him, they should’ve dug that piece of information up. 

“Sir,” JARVIS sounds, “CCTV has just caught Mr. Jackson passing a bank on Fir Street.” 

“Alright JARVIS,” Tony cracks his neck, “Let’s get this show on the road.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy meets Tony. Percy punches Tony. It's not a good time.

Despite the fact that it was late September and the sun had gone down hours ago, Percy was cushioned by tepid air as he walked. It’s startlingly warm in California. Maybe it was that he’d come from New York, where the chill had already sunk its teeth into the city for the winter, but Percy found himself grateful for the warmth. 

He was still wearing the slacks and button up with the sleeves rolled up he’d worn earlier, when Frederick and his family had stood around the fresh headstone, the earth surrounding it a serene green. There had been no casket, no body to bury. Percy had tucked a drachma in her hand and burned her shroud after his fight with Nico, and it felt a lot like putting her to rest then, but Percy was thankful to have a place to visit now. A place to remember her. 

His gut twists as he pushes open the gate, and the back of his neck prickles. He runs a hand through his hair. It’s too short now, and it betrays him as it sticks straight up on his neck. Someone is watching him. He shakes his head, and continues his trek to Annabeth’s gravestone, keeping his gait unbothered. Whoever the hell was about to bother him could wait. Or at least, he could make them uncomfortable. 

He sits about five feet away, pressing his back up against the headstone in front of hers so he can stare at the soft lettering. Annabeth Chase. It’s been eight months, but his lungs still ache in his chest when he thinks about her. He draws one knee up, tapping his fingers against his pant leg, and just exists there in the graveyard for a moment. He just sits there and breathes the warm air. A fragile sort of peace exists in him, a balance between crushing sadness and a recent swell of anger that bubbles in his chest.

Footsteps crunch through the grass behind him, and the balance tips. Percy sighs, irritated, and he slips a hand into his pocket, loosely gripping Riptide. His other hand clenches uselessly at the grass, pulling a clump up by the roots.

“Who are you and what do you want?” Percy asks, and when the footsteps pause, he continues. “It doesn’t actually matter what you want. The answer is no, I will not do you a favor, a solid, or any other variation of the phrase.” 

“Not even if I’m Tony Stark?” Tony Stark asks, stepping into Percy’s line of sight. 

A jolt of annoyance runs through Percy at the sight of his smarmy smile. There’s a distinct lack of shiny armor, but he’s not wearing an expensive suit like he does in the magazine pictures either. In fact, the plain t-shirt has a rip in it, and his jeans are grease stained. Despite the discrepancies, it is very obviously the Iron Man standing in front of him.

“She liked your building.” Percy jerks his head to Annabeth’s headstone. “Said it was, uh, extremely structurally sound and a big architectural statement.” 

“My building?” Stark tips his head to the side, staring down at Percy with a calculating stare. People look at him like that when they’re trying to figure him out, how he works, how to manipulate him. Percy doesn’t lift his gaze from where it rested on the ground at his feet.

“Stark Tower. Or Avengers Tower. Whatever you want to call it.” Percy waves his hand noncommittally. He tips his head up to look at Stark, who shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. 

“Huh.” Stark replies, “Anyways, I didn’t want to ask a favor, just some questions.” 

Percy considers it for a second, going with Stark and blanketing the truth for him to get the mortals off his back. He’d done it before, when he was twelve, and had Annabeth to come up with the best lie to smooth over the ‘kidnapping’ that was their first quest. He hadn’t really had to do it since, but considering the scope and impact of the Giant War, he’s surprised this was the first time someone had come to talk to him. Only, he didn’t really want to talk to anyone right now. 

“Nah.” Percy rolls the word off of his tongue with a practiced ease, and watches as Stark bristles. His best skill had always been pissing off people of power. A trace of amusement goes through him as he watches Stark’s face twist.

Stark rolls his shoulders back and says, “Nah? I wasn’t really asking. Nah? Yeah okay, you’re coming with me.” 

He’s offended, that’s for sure. Percy rolls his eyes, and replies, “Nah.” 

“Did you not hear me?” Tony scoffs, “It wasn’t a request. You need to come with me and answer some questions. Like, how the hell do you short out CCTV half the time? What the hell is up with your lack of any kind of record? Who the actual hell are you?” 

Percy gently rises to his feet with all the confidence of a seasoned demigod. He pockets riptide and lets his hands fall limp at his sides. Was this mortal, suitless as he was, really posing a threat. Percy was tired of the posturing. 

“I would assume that you usually know who the people you want to interrogate are before you demand things of them, but I’m no hero.” Percy scoffs, like he’d just made a joke, “Percy Jackson. The answer is no. I’m leaving now.”

Percy turns away from Stark, walking back to the gate he’d entered at. His green eyes stormy and dark. Stark takes a few quick steps towards him, and grabs Percy’s arm, effectively spinning him around. Percy glances down at Tony’s arm, then back up at the other man’s scowling face. Percy tilts his head sharply, in a what-can-you-do sort of fashion, and clocks Tony in the jaw. The other man collapses into the grass, Percy catching him and easing him down slowly to avoid any other injury. Then he glances around, catching the form of a security camera. With a roll of his eyes, he walks out of the graveyard.


End file.
